Chapter Six: The
Hunter’s Shack

Draco relaxed slowly
and looked at his companions.Vince
and Marcus Flint were dressed in Dementors’ robes, like him, hidden under the
Slytherin bleachers on the Quidditch pitch.Perched on Greg’s shoulders, the cold, February wind nipped at
Draco’s ears beneath the black robe’s hood.Beyond the bleachers, the thirteen-year-old could hear the cheers of the
students as Ravenclaw scored against Gryffindor.Soon, Ravenclaw would be the winner, thanks to Draco and his
Housemates.

Draco peered through
a crack up at the sky, waiting for the right moment.The prank had been Greg’s idea, although inadvertently.He, Vince, and Draco had been doing homework together at a table in the
Slytherin common room.They had been talking about the latest Quidditch match, at
which Slytherin had narrowly beaten Ravenclaw.

“You let me worry
about Diggory,” Draco had said.“Concentrate
on knocking the chasers off their brooms, unlike last game.”

“Too bad Potter
can’t faint at every match,” Greg had commented, scratching his ear with his
quill and getting ink all over his cheek and neck.“Slytherin would win the cup for certain, then.”

Draco and Vince had
looked at Greg and then at each other.Later
that night, they had cornered the captain, Marcus Flint, and told him the idea.Now, a week later, they stood under the bleachers in Dementors’ robes,
waiting to put the plan into action.

Overhead, the
Gryffindor and Ravenclaw seekers spotted the snitch and streaked after it.That was the cue.“Let’s go,” Draco said.

With Vince in the
lead – or was it Marcus? – the three “Dementors” emerged from their
hiding spot.

Draco had warned the
Twins, Neville, and the other two at the “Protect Potter” meeting on
Thursday that if something happened at the Quidditch match, it was more than
likely caused by him.In face of
vociferous protests, he’d said, “Simply because I’m assisting you lot,
does not mean I’m nice.”

Draco and his
friends lined up at the edge of the field and raised their hooded faces towards
the sky.Draco could see the moment
they were noticed.He chortled
gleefully in his mind as Cho Chang pointed and Harry Potter looked down.

Greg shifted and
Draco gripped his hair tighter, head lowering.“Hold still, you oaf.If I
fall, you’ll—”

“AAH!”

Draco’s head
whipped up at Vince’s yell and froze.An
enormous, silver-white beast with a rack of sharp horns charged straight at
them.Draco’s face drained of
colour, huge eyes staring at the monstrous animal, as terror overwhelmed him.Petrified, with a rushing sound in his ears, he couldn’t move, he
couldn’t scream.He couldn’t
even breathe.

Greg, however,
shouted as Vince rammed into them in his flight from the animal.Greg stumbled backwards, with Draco on his shoulders, and they crashed
into Flint.Greg lost his balance
completely, and the four of them landed in a robe-tangled heap on the ground.

Eye-contact broken,
Draco was able to move again.Terror
fuelled his scream and struggle to get away.The robes hampered him, the hood blinding his vision.He could hear the roars of the crowd, cheering his inevitable death.Sweat broke out on his uncontrollably shaking body.He managed to free a hand and yanked the hood from his head, messing his
hair.

The gigantic beast
was gone.Draco’s head jerked
around as he searched for the animal.He
saw nothing but the Quidditch stadium, students rushing onto the field, and
Professor McGonagall swooping upon them like a banshee.

“How dare you!”
McGonagall shouted furiously.“I
am appalled and ashamed Hogwarts students would do such a thing!You’re lucky Mr. Potter’s Patronus could not physically harm you!”

Relief flooded
Draco, followed by embarrassment at the knowledge the beast had been
incorporeal.Then, came anger.Potter had successfully done such a powerful spell and, by
the cheering swarm of red and gold on the field, had also caught the snitch.The prank had failed spectacularly.

“An unworthy
trick!”McGonagall carried on, as
Draco struggled to extricate himself from the robe.“A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor seeker!Detention for all of you, and fifty points from Slytherin!I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake!Ah, here he comes now!”

Draco fumbled with the hooks on the robe, kneeling above Goyle’s head on the
ground.He could see Weasley
doubled over in laughter standing beside Harry a short distance away.Humiliation flooded Draco, churning like acid inside him at the smirk on
Harry’s face.He hated
Potter.The need for retribution
burned in him.

Things used to be so
much simpler when he wanted Potter dead.

Now

Draco stood on the
porch, leaning a shoulder against the post supporting the overhang of the roof.One foot was casually crossed over the other at the ankle as he kept
watch.He unbuttoned the collar of
his white shirt, but his shirttails remained neatly tucked in and his
shirtsleeves cuffed properly.Simply
because Draco was wandering the woods did not mean he should lose his sense of
decorum.

The night was
pleasantly warm, the stars clearly visible in the sky.Draco had escaped outside as soon as he’d eaten dinner, made by Harry
from the deceased hunter’s food stores, and after Pansy had better healed his
injuries.The camaraderie and
laugher had gotten on his nerves.Pansy had chosen to insinuate herself into the conversation
and Draco was left alone.

Eventually, Ron and
Neville came outside, Ron assisting an exhausted-looking Neville around the
shack to shower.Ron eyed Draco
suspiciously as he passed.Pansy
and Hermione went together to shower next, chatting like childhood friends,
after Ron and Neville came back.The
girls were giggling, still, when they returned.

Pansy looked chuffed
when she finally joined Draco on the porch.Her hair had been dried by a charm and was perfectly groomed.She wore the same hunter green robes as before, but a fresh scent wafted
gently from them, indicating they, too, had been cleaned.

“I think Little
Miss Prissy Pants has a crush on Longbottom.”Pansy righted the porch chair.“Too
bad for her.Scourgify.”She tucked away her wand and sat primly on the newly cleaned seat.“She had years to hook up with him, but didn’t.Now that he’s interested in someone else, she’s jealous and wants him
for herself.”

“Are you going to
catfight?” Draco questioned lazily, shifting so he could see her and still
keep watch.He hadn’t seen any
evidence of the supposed crush, but Pansy got this way with blokes she liked.
“Over Longbottom?”

Pansy glared.“Neville Longbottom is a laudable, pureblood wizard, as you very well
know.”

Draco hummed
noncommittally.

“You just think
anyone but yourself is unworthy.”

Draco smiled.“True.”

“Too bad I’d
never date you, even if I had bits you liked,” Pansy said.“You’re prettier than me and that would never do.”

“I am prettier,
aren’t I?” he preened.“No
one can resist me.”

Pansy made a
derisive sound.“I can name many,
including a certain Gryffindor.”

Draco more pouted than scowled in her direction.“Don’t remind me.”

“Perhaps you
should give up on him.Find someone
else and seduce him.Salazar knows,
you need a shag.”

“Pansy!”

“What?”Pansy looked him over.“You’re
a few days away from being eighteen and you’re wound tighter than
McGonagall’s hair bun.A good buggering would do wonders.”

Draco did scowl this
time.“My personal life is no
longer up for discussion.”

Pansy laughed.“What personal life?You
haven’t been on a single date since we went to the Yule Ball together in Fourth
Year, and we went as friends.”

Draco sniffed
dramatically and took to ignoring his oldest friend as she laughed herself silly
at his expense.

Pansy calmed
eventually, and when Draco glanced over at her, she grinned unrepentantly.Her cheeks were flushed rosy and her eyes shining brightly with true
amusement.A single hair had
escaped its artful do and curled over her forehead.She was quite attractive, in her own way.He could see why Neville would want her.

Draco shifted
against the post and hissed when a sharp wood splinter scraped him.He stopped leaning, craned his arm behind him, and touched his lower
back.His shirt wasn’t ripped,
thankfully, though it felt like his skin didn’t fare up.

Grumbling silently,
Draco started off the porch.“I’m
going to get cleaned up.Keep
watch, eh?”

“Take your
time.”Pansy’s grin became
devilish. “Have a toss and relax
a bit.”

“Very amusing,”
Draco drawled.Her chuckles
followed him around the corner of the shack, as he headed off to shower.

The outdoor shower
was a three-sided cubicle butted up against the rear of the shack, magically
waterproofed to prevent wood rot.A
ledge spanned the length of one of the shoulder-high walls, a few capped bottles
and scrub brushes of various sizes scattered along it.A rusty pipe ran from a pump upwards and curved over the cubicle wall
into a showerhead.A flick of
Draco’s wand started the pump and ensured the water would be warm.

He set his wand on
the ledge and stripped.He draped
his clothes over the end of the wall, his boots lined neatly on the ground
outside the cubicle.The night air
was warm and his bare skin seemed to glow in the full moonlight.He was unashamed of his body, his lean musculature sculpted
from years of Quidditch.It was a
good thing, because the shower stall had no door or curtain.

Stepping onto the
stone platform, Draco tugged the shower chain and a warm spray rained down on
him from the showerhead.The end of
the chain looped on a hook on the cubicle wall, keeping the water running.He dropped his chin, letting the warm water pour over him, soaking his
hair and washing away the day’s dirt from his body.Scourgify was well and good for a cleansing charm, but bathing was
the only way to truly feel clean.

He closed his eyes
as exhaustion set in.He’d been
awake for at least thirty-six hours already and the circles under his eyes must
be awful.He needed to get some
sleep before he looked truly hideous.

With a tired sigh,
he opened his eyes and lifted his head. Bubbles on the cap indicated which
bottle the others had used.Draco
poured a small amount of the creamy white liquid in his palm and set the bottle
on the ledge without recapping it.

He rubbed his palms
together and began washing his hair.The
soap had a woodsy scent, fresh and green.Draco rid all traces of spell-gel, rinsing it off with the
sudsy lather.The white suds skated
along the rock slab beneath his feet, running into the leafy ground outside of
the shower cubicle.

The gentle splash of
water as it rained from the showerhead onto the rock slab was a soothing sound.Draco poured another dab of liquid soap into his palm, put aside the
bottle, and rubbed the woodsy scent into his skin.The soap shimmered iridescently on his pale body in the moonlight, as he
slid his hands up and under his arms, over his shoulders and neck, down his
chest and stomach, over his hips and genitals, and around to his back.

“Ow,” Draco
said, more in surprise than pain.He
slid a soapy finger carefully along his lower back, wincing slightly at the
raised scrape from the porch’s post.He
glanced at his shirt where it hung over the wall and frowned unhappily at the
few dots of blood staining the previously cleaned, white material.

Draco rinsed off
then twisted his upper body, trying to see the damage and whether or not he was
still bleeding.He extended his
left leg behind him, bare toes slipping on the rock slab.His arm was stretched around his back so he was able to
nearly grab his right hip as he twisted.He
craned his neck, and was just able to see the edge of the scrape—

“Oh, sorry.”

“AH!”Draco whipped around, grabbed his wand from his ledge, and faced the
surprise intruder.Harry stood
outside the shower, wearing only his school trousers, shoes, and a baffled look.His upper half was bare, his skin a coppery colour in the full moonlight,
clean of dirt, blood, and sweat by a spell before dinner.He was lean, with lightly defined chest and stomach.A dark trail of hair arrowed down from his navel beneath the
waistband of his trousers, and his nipples were a pale chocolate that begged to
be tasted.

Draco spun around,
turning his back to Harry, and swallowed thickly.“Frigidus,” he mumbled with a gesture of his wand
and stepped directly under the now-freezing shower spray.

“Potter, do you
mind?”Draco struggled not to
shiver from the cold.“I’d like
to finish my shower without your pervy eyes on me.”Plus, if he knew Harry was watching… Draco shivered for another reason
entirely.

“It’s not like
you have anything interesting to see, Malfoy.”

“The rest of
Hogwarts would contradict your opinion,” Draco said.Though, with the cold water, parts of him currently resembled a
shrivelfig.

The abrupt change of
topic caused Draco to flounder and utter an elegant, “Huh?”

“I asked if you
wanted help.”

“No, I don’t
want your help,” Draco said.“Now,
naff off.”

He yanked the shower
chain off the hook, grabbed his trousers as the water shut off, and tried to put
them on.His wet skin hindered him
and instead of stopping to dry himself with a spell, both damp legs caught on
the material of the trousers and he lost his balance.His wand clattered to the ground as he hopped once, twice,
and over he went, smacking into the side wall with his right shoulder, nearly
toppling forward and hitting his skull on the shower head.

Small, warm hands
were suddenly on his bare back, steadying him.“Careful, there, Malfoy.”The
laughing admonishment was a hot gust against his cool, wet skin between his
shoulder blades.A shiver coursed
down his spine, raising bumps on his arms and legs.

Draco gulped and
looked down.He was becoming
obviously enamoured of Harry’s close proximity.He could feel the heated blush of embarrassment splash traitorously
across his pale skin.

He froze in place
when he felt calloused fingertips brush down his back, catching on the fine
hairs on his skin.Those torturous
fingers ghosted over the scrape.His
breath caught in his throat, his muscles jumping at the touch.

“Are you certain
you don’t want me to heal this?” Harry asked blandly, as if he didn’t care
one way or another but was being polite.

Draco couldn’t
think.He couldn’t breathe.People didn’t touch him as intimately as Harry was doing.Only Pansy dared to lay a hand on him.It had been years since his parents had demonstrated affection towards
him.

And here was Harry
Potter, touching him freely and gently for the third time today.It was a surprise he was still standing upright, though his locked knees
probably had something to do with that.

“I’ll
take your silence as a yes, because you’d never voluntarily ask for help.”A hand settled on Draco’s left hip, the tip of a wand lightly touched
his back, and another hot breath of air gusted across his skin.“Sano.”

Draco might have
gibbered like a monkey if he was capable of making a sound.He stared sightlessly at the showerhead, the thin shower chain swinging
in the moonlight like a slow pendulum with each of his unsteady exhales.His pulse ticked visibly in his neck and in his cock.His hands hung limply at his sides, his trousers forgotten around his
calves and tangled under his feet.The
dampness of the rock slab beneath him soaked through the material of his
trousers and wet the soles of his feet.Tremors
ran through his body with the tingling of magical healing.

“Any more?”
Harry said.He put his hand on
Draco’s shoulder, the point of his wand visible in Draco’s peripheral
vision, and tugged him around.Draco’s
feet and damp legs were still trapped by his trousers and he was knocked
off-balance again.Harry reacted
reflexively.

There was a moment
where time seemed to stop entirely, when Harry’s left hand found something to
hold onto.The night wildlife went
silent around them as the world stood still. Draco stared into uncovered, wide
green eyes, glasses frozen partway down Harry’s nose.Harry’s mouth hung open, lips shiny from licking.

A droplet of water,
full and heavy, dripped from the showerhead above and splashed on Harry’s
arched collarbone.

Draco’s hips
jerked suddenly and he gasped sharply in unbelievably exquisite pleasure.Harry snatched his hand away, flushing pink from forehead to navel.Draco clamped his hands in front of his groin, trying futilely to hide
his erection and not climax on the spot.

Mortification hit, a
bright wash of red heating his pale skin from head to toe.

Harry snapped out of
his shock, turned on his bare heel, and left.Fast footsteps broke the stillness of the woods and time resumed with
horrified clarity.Draco burned
with embarrassment and humiliation.His
movements were jerky, as he pulled up and fastened his trousers.His erection strained against the zip and he gave himself a vicious
twist.Gathering his other clothing
and wand, he walked stiltedly around the shack and deposited the items on the
porch with Pansy.

“I’ll be
back,” he told her, and dropped to all fours with a pop before she could
question him, the Animagus change completed in a moment.He fled from the shack into the woods.

His canine form
protected him from the other animals and beasts in the woods, but not from his
thoughts.How could his body betray
him like it had?How could he have
stood there and let Harry touch him?Why
hadn’t he said ‘no’ to help?Why
hadn’t he moved?How could he
ever look Harry in the eye again?

Mordred, what if
Harry told?There were no
insults strong enough to counter Weasley if he had this information, or anyone
else for that matter.Harry might
have grabbed him on accident, but he was the one who had an unmistakable hard-on
after being touched by another guy.And
he knew Harry had seen him unaroused when he’d first startled Draco.He would be laughed at and mocked unrelentingly for the remainder of the
school year and possibly beyond.

And once his father
found out…

Draco tried to
outrun his mortification.He wanted
the earth to open up and swallow him, like it had Neville.He wanted to keep running and never turn back.His secret was tattered irreparably.How was he going to face anyone again?What—

Swiftly and
silently, Draco followed the scent.He
crept between the trees, hearing low conversation before he caught sight of the
camp.Body low to the ground, he
slinked closer and hid under the cover of a poison berry bush.

There were four of
them, wizards dressed in black robes with hoods down, sitting in chairs around a
campfire.A single plain brown tent
stood between two tall trees nearby.The
four were drinking from mugs and chatting amicably.

Draco stayed still,
watched, and listened.He
couldn’t figure out from conversation who they were or why they were there.Either way, it was worrisome.They
weren’t camped too far from the shack.

“Pour me some
more, Roderick,” one of them said, shaking his empty mug.He extended his arm over the fire, passing the mug to
Roderick seated opposite him.

The wood crackled and sparked, and the fire blazed slightly.The wizard’s robe sleeve caught alight and he yelped.He yanked his arm back and batted at the small flames.The other three laughed.

“It’s not
funny,” he snapped, the flames extinguished.He shoved up his sleeve and raised his arm to check for damage.On his forearm, a black tattoo of a skull with a snake emerging from its
mouth stood out clearly in the campfire light.

A growl built in the
back of Draco’s coyote throat.Ron
had been right, there were Death Eaters inside the book.